​When you’re reading a good book, do you ever want to know what’s going to happen so badly that you take a peek at the ending? I have to admit, I’m often tempted, but so far I’ve been able to resist.

In my life too, I’m often curious about what’s going to happen or how things are going to turn out. That’s why I’m fascinated by fortune tellers. I’ll admit, I have visited one. A long time ago, another lifetime really, I was struggling with deciding whether I should move to Boston or stay in Los Angeles. A friend of mine had been wanting to visit a psychic for a long time. She was spending a lot of time with a guy we worked with. She liked him a lot and was sure he liked her too, but nothing was happening. She wanted a psychic to tell her if/when something would happen, and she convinced me to go with her to get help with my decision.

We went to see a psychic in Westwood. My friend had her reading first. While she was sitting with the fortune teller, I waited outside on a sidewalk. Her reading lasted about thirty minutes. When it was over, she came flying out the door, told me it was my turn and then went running up the street.

Because of the look on my friend’s face, I was scared, but I went through with the reading. The psychic told me very little about my future. Instead, she told me everything about what was going on in my life at that time. She was so accurate that I was convinced my friend had given her all the details.

After she neatly recapped my life, the psychic said if I wanted to know what was going to happen in my future, I had to pay her an additional $200.The original reading was only $20. I laughed, told her there was no way I would pay that and got up to leave. She shrugged and promised me that I’d be back.

Outside, my friend was sitting on a bench waiting for me. She swore she hadn’t said a thing about me to the fortune teller and told me the woman knew all about her life as well, including how she liked the guy at work. The psychic said he didn’t love my friend the way she wanted him to, but she could make him if my friend paid an additional $200. My friend was so convinced the psychic could help that she ran to the bank after her reading. Luckily she didn’t have $200 to withdraw.

A few nights later, I told another one of my friends about our experience and how the psychic had nailed our present day lives. He wanted to have his fortune read and wanted me to go with him. I drove with him to Westwood; we parked and started to walk toward the building. Then I remembered the psychic promising me that I’d be back. I turned around and went back to the car. A few weeks later, the friend I originally went to the psychic with learned that the guy at work whom she liked was gay. In both of our cases, the fortune teller was right. Clearly she was trying to scam us for extra money, but I often wonder if she did have some kind of gift.

Even though the experience happened long ago, I’ll never forget it. In my debut novel Waiting for Ethan, my main character Gina gets her fortune read when she’s thirteen years old and learns the name of her future husband is Ethan. My long-ago experience with the Psychic of Westwood was the genesis for this scene and the creation of the character Ajee, the Psychic of Westham.